Bt Bill for £5000

DUTR

btbill wrote: »

I am not making accusations against the phone company. They are asking me for £5000 for data usage and I am suggesting that they need to prove what that data usage was. BT say they run their service over vodaphone and so it is they, not BT that have the specifics of the data usage. BT haven't been able to get that from Vodaphone. The ombudsman say they BT must provide me with the evidence but also want me to agree to pay half the bill without first seeing that evidence.

I am wondering however why everyone isn't getting bills of £5000 if pre-loaded apps are causing this amount of data usage without the phone user knowing.

Incidentally when speaking to BT today (again chasing detailed specifics of data usage) the operator described the bill as "insane".

But the operator describing the bill as insane is (a) not having to pay the bill (b) not the one chasing the bill (c) going to be affected by by whether the company wins or loses the case (d) if you end up with a ccj

But to answer your question, everybody is not recieving those types of bill because their usage will more than likely be different, a £5k bill is rare but not impossible for a domestic user. Also as you mentioned holidays, was some of the usage for use abroad?

btbill

No I was not abroad. In London throughout.

Guys_Dad

Back to the original post.

From that, I see 3 major areas that need sorting out.

1. Your "unlimited" data. Now did "unlimited" truly mean unlimited with BT in 2009/10? What information were you given about exactly what data you got for your £5.00?

2. Your bill. You were either on paper bills or your account should be available showing when and how the data was downloaded, plus the amount you actually are being charged for. That is a requirement and definitely what BT would need to show to a court to get a judgement.

3. Why has it taken so long to resolve? BT have, by law, to retain the actual information that forms their bill. You could demand a copy using Data Protection - cost £10. They then have to provide that. If they don't have it, then they can't enforce any debt without the information.

£5k is a ridiculous amount to charge for data.

My advice is to look up the OFCOM web site for their regulations and make sure that BT have complied 100%.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but I would not be rushing to take up the 50% reduction offer without more evidence of the debt and how it was calculated.

btbill

Thank you for posting in a very helpful way. If anyone can be bothered to read this very long detailed outline of the bills, I would be most grateful as they mean zilch to me. ( It's late. I have a family to pack for .Nowhere exotic, a hut in an english forest.)

1. "unlimited" was an issue I raised with the ombudsman. He (it is the actual ombudsman responding not otelo or ombudsman's officers) does not accept my recollection of the conversation on the selling discussion because BT do not have a recording. A bit catch 22 if you will. When the bill arrived (for £5000) it had in brackets the "unlimited" bundle package i.e. 500mb.



2. Bill. A paper bill(s) .
Not sure how there there came to be or were originally 2 but they are both for the same amount: £5404.42 They have consecutive bill numbers (ending 33 and 34) but both have same date 21/4/10, Lets start with 33.

Front page: service charges £17.03
Usage charges: £4582.48
Subtotal:£4599.51
Vat:£804.91
total this period £5404.42

Usage summary: total uk usage 4218935 kb (no roamed usage).

Discount summary states...
unlimited data bundle (500mb)
1-31 march allowance at start of bill...475905kb allowance used 475905 kb allowance remaining..0
1 ap-30 ap allowance at start of month 512000kb allowance used 86549kb allowance remaining: 425451kb.


mobile charges section:
cost £4582.48
Bundle used (data) 562454kb ( can anyone make head or tail of this given the above?)

The details of usage section states:
no date time or access point. Just-

total itemised usage: 0.000
total non-itemised usage 4571.099
Total data usage charges: 45782.481
Total usage forxxxxxxxx £45782.48

second bill (34) states:
total for this period. £0.00
balance from previous invoice: £5404.42

Then gives zeros for all Usage summary

For Bundle summary states:
unlimited data bundle 1april -30 April 425451. Allowance used 0. allowance remaining 425451KB.

amount for this bill. 0.

3. Time taken. Now there is a point. Complaint raised within days/weeks/continued as nauseum. I was promised immediate reactions (and disbelief at the bill) time and time again to no avail by BT's complaints sections. Time elapsed, no response. Then Otelo took a few ages but eventually a report that I asked to be reviewed, the ombusmand's officials agreed report needed reviewing but suggested I pay 50%. When I spoke to officer she thought I had been a business all along so decided to refer to ombudsman himself.

Now I may be a bit jaded by this process but allow me to be (after nearly 2 years of promises) when I say how remarkable that the ombudsman took it upon himself to respond on no date less than 22 December to my very telephone call in the afternoon to his office to remind them that a response was still outstanding (since July), he merely to reaffirm the original decision.

That decision was 1. BT had to provide evidence of its billing but 2. I had to agree to pay 50% of the bill.

I would appreciate anyone taking the time to look at the billing info above.

Thank you and goodnight.

Weird_Nev

I can't believe people are suggesting that that data usage is "Normal" for an HTC device! It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to use that amount of data!

5Gb is: Watching 7 full films streamed in HD. I have no idea how you would do this.
Watching about 50 hours of Youtube vids. Again, no idea.
It would fill your phone 10 times over to download that many apps.
It would NEVER, EVER, EVER be possible to download 5Gb of friends status updates, test emails, or any other thing in once month using the provided HTC friendstream/ weather apps.

The only way you could do it would be to teather it as a modem to a laptop and then go mad torrenting or downloading videos or something.

I would want to see their data logs - they hold records of exactly what has been downloaded, what sites the phone has acessed, what nodes it connected to when it was downloading this data. So ask them what it is they are saying you've watched, downloaded and used. They can link what data has been sent/recieved by your device. Where a £5k bill is concerned I'd want to see all of that data because to me, it screams "Computer error" to try and charge you for that much data.

btbill

Thank you so much Nev

For a moment (having received the ombudsman's letter today and reading DUTR's responses) that I was actually going mad.

Weird_Nev

Seriously, get onto them and demand that they provide the logs of data used. This is £5k we're on about.

If you haven't done anything a bit silly like use your phone as a modem to catch up on iPlayer, then you need to fight this. I see the kind of logs I'm talking about through work occasionally, and they run to reams and reams of paper, detaling the access of the device. IT sometimes looks a bit gobbldegooksih, but they will be able to tell you what's youtube, what's torrents, what's iplayer, etc etc. These are the big data sinks. Thinks like email, facebook updates, even viewing images use a negligable amount of data.

Sounds a bit like you might have buried your head in the sand about this? Left it a while? 2012 is the year to get it sorted.

If you have used it, then puch for a reasonable settelment, but to me it looks like something has gone drastically wrong with their system. THey should be getting someone internal to look into it too, if they're persuing you for the £5k.

btbill

Nev, Thank you so much,

Did you see my entry about the bill info from BT? Can you enlighten me?

Weird_Nev

Discount summary states...
unlimited data bundle (500mb)
1-31 march allowance at start of bill...475905kb allowance used 475905 kb allowance remaining..0
1 ap-30 ap allowance at start of month 512000kb allowance used 86549kb allowance remaining: 425451kb.

This bit appears to state that between 1st-31st march, you used your entire "bundle 500Mb" allowance and then got charged for the rest.
Then, from 1st April to 30th april you used about 86Mb of your 500Mb allowance, leaving about 400Mb (numbers don't quite add up as it's 1024Kb to a Mb and they unhelpfully quote everything in Kb).

That Suggests to me that something went DRASTICALLY wrong in March 2011. 80Mb, your April included usage, is much more consistent with casual, minimal use of data features of the phone.

mobile charges section:
cost £4582.48
Bundle used (data) 562454kb ( can anyone make head or tail of this given the above?)

The details of usage section states:
no date time or access point. Just-

total itemised usage: 0.000
total non-itemised usage 4571.099
Total data usage charges: 45782.481
Total usage forxxxxxxxx £45782.48

This is saying ( I think) that you used around 562Mb. That really shouldn't be a problem as it's included in your bundle.

second bill (34) states:
total for this period. £0.00
balance from previous invoice: £5404.42

Then gives zeros for all Usage summary

For Bundle summary states:
unlimited data bundle 1april -30 April 425451. Allowance used 0. allowance remaining 425451KB.

THis is just a reapat that you haven't paid your march bill, and your april bill you haven't used anything. A bit odd being as it said you used about 80Mb in Bill 33.....


From VOdafones website:

Pay as you browse costs just £1 a day (a day runs from 00:00 midnight to 23:59), and you only pay on the days you want to browse. Your £1 buys you 50MB – which is about enough to read up to 150 BBC News stories, as well as reading and replying to around 150 emails.

So, at their day rate, £30 should buy you 1.5Gb of data over a month. They even have a 2Gb data package for £15.


They state approx total uk usage 4218935 kb - About 4,000Mb. That's £1/Mb for data over the bundle amount. Extortion, plain and simple. I paid that for Data in India when I forgot to tell my phone company that I was roaming.

That indicates that with their current data charge rates you would need to download something like 600Gb of data! Thats' not even physically possible in a month with UK 3G data rates.:rotfl:

Your bill does NOT tell you enough. YOu need to see graphs of data downloads, figures telling you exactly how much your phone is meant to have received. They know all this, they keep it 7 years. You need to ask them. I only hope you haven't left it too late.

banger9365

not one off the usages are above 560mb
"1-31 march allowance at start of bill...475905kb (464.75mb)allowance used 475905 kb (454.75mb)allowance remaining..0
1 ap-30 ap allowance at start of month 512000kb (500mb)allowance used 86549kb( 84.52mb)allowance remaining:425451 kb.(415.47mb)"

"mobile charges section:
cost £4582.48
Bundle used (data) 562454kb (549.27mb)( can anyone make head or tail of this given the above?)

where do's this come from "Usage summary: total uk usage 4218935 kb (no roamed usage).4.02GB

(84.52 megabytes) + (454.75 megabytes) = 539.27 megabytes they get 549.27mb

which leaves 3.49GB unaccounted and that's from their bill and by what i can see you was within your allowance for both months